"Better Call Saul" Recap: "Alpine Shepherd Boy"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

I think one of the things that I love about Better Call Saul is the fact that the show is so dynamic. One minute it's a rip roaring comedy, the next minute it's a hardcore drama, then it quickly becomes something entirely different. There's little to leave the audience bored and last night's episode "Alpine Shepherd Boy" pulled off all those things. 

From a hilarity standpoint, Jimmy's scheme to drum up business with the billboard incident gets him a few client meetings that are nothing short of a disaster. He is asked to represent a man ready to secede from the United States of America, and he is offering one hell of a handsome price to have Jimmy help him, a cool million, with half of it up front right now.  Unfortunately for Jimmy, the money is minted in his "client's" home, for his future sovereign nation. 

His second client has invented a toilet that helps promote toilet training with a voice chip. Unfortunately for the client, since he is oblivious to it, his device works like a charm minus the fact it basically spouts out "positive reinforcement" that sounds extremely sexual in nature. It leads Jimmy to finally settle into the possibility of working in Elder Law since he manages to make a little cash from putting together wills and trusts.  In fact, the second funniest scene of the night, because nothing beats the sex toilet, is Jimmy working the floor of a retirement home in his brand new Matlock inspired suit.  

But as I said before, the laughs were not the entire focus of the episode. There was plenty of drama as well as Jimmy's brother Chuck finally ran into trouble with his illness, finding himself arrested and placed in the hospital over swiping his neighbor's newspaper. It leads to some brilliantly acted scenes in the hospital that show how much the poor man is suffering from his mental illness and how much of a struggle it is for those who care for him. But the twist of the night was the mysterious Mike (mysterious to me anyways, still working on watching Breaking Bad) and getting a taste of his day and the seeming loneliness and isolation in his life. Heck, he even showed up at a lady's house, I'm guessing an estranged family member, to simply see her. I have a feeling I'm missing the connection there, but that's okay.

Either way, this was simply a fantastic episode of the show, one that definitely left me laughing hard before forcing me to settle back in and realize these are some deeply flawed characters facing some tough troubles in life. At this point Chuck's mental health is the biggest concern of all, especially since the show has done a fine job of skirting the line between whether or not he is actually sick until the simple pressing of a power button last night showed off just how mentally ill he really is. But now that we are over this mini crisis with Chuck, it looks like Mike will be the central focus next week as we learn exactly why a couple of cops have made a long trip to see him. Until then...

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